V.

The temptations of that demon of psychological study proved too great

for Marion; particularly when that tempter allied himself to an equally

stubborn though less insidious demon apparently residing in Lady

Atalanta: the demon of amateur authorship. So that, by the end of ten

days, there was established, between Lady Tal's lodgings and Marion's

hotel, a lively interchange of communication, porters and gondoliers for

ever running to and fro between "that usual tall young lady at San Vio,"

and "that usual short, bald gentleman on the Riva." The number of

parcels must have been particularly mysterious to these messengers,

unless the proverbially rapid intuition (inherited during centuries of

intrigue and spying) of Venetian underlings arrived at the fact that the

seemingly numberless packets were in reality always one and the same,

or portions of one and the same: the celebrated novel travelling to and

fro, with perpetual criticisms from Marion and corrections from Lady

Atalanta. This method of intercourse was, however, daily supplemented by

sundry notes, in the delicate, neat little hand of the novelist, or the

splashing writing of the lady, saying with little variation--"Dear Lady

Atalanta, I fear I may not have made my meaning very clear with respect

to Chapter I, II, III, IV--or whatever it might be--will you allow me

to give you some verbal explanations on the subject?" and "Dear Mr.

Marion,--_Do_ come _at once_. I've got stuck over that beastly chapter

V, VI, or VII, and positively _must_ see you about it."

"Well, I never!" politely ejaculated Miss Vanderwerf regularly every

evening--"if that Marion isn't the most _really_ kind and patient

creature on this earth!"

To which her friend the Princess, the other arbitress of Venetian

society in virtue of her palace, her bric-a-brac, and that knowledge of

Marie Corelli and Mrs. Campbell-Praed which balanced Miss Vanderwerf's

capacity for grasping the meaning of Gyp--invariably answered in her

best English colloquial:

"Well, my word! If that Lady Tal's not the most impudent amateur

scribble-scrabble of all the amateur scribble-scrabbles that England

produces."

Remarks which immediately produced a lively discussion of Lady Tal

and of Marion, including the toilettes of the one and the books

of the other, with the result that neither retained a single moral,

intellectual, or physical advantage; and the obvious corollary, in the

mind of the impartial listener, that Jervase Marion evidently gave up

much more of his time to Lady Tal and her novel than to Miss Vanderwerf

and the Princess and their respective salons.

As a matter of fact, however, although a degree of impudence more

politely described as energy and determination, on the part of Lady Tal;

and of kindness, more correctly designated as feebleness of spirit, on

the part of Marion, had undoubtedly been necessary in the first stages

of this intercourse, yet nothing of either of these valuable social

qualities had been necessary for its continuation. Although maintaining

that manner of hers expressive of the complete rights which her name of

Ossian and her additional inches constituted over all things and people,

Lady Tal had become so genuinely enthusiastic for the novelist's art as

revealed by Marion, that her perpetual intrusion upon his leisure was

that merely of an ardent if somewhat inconsiderate disciple. In the

eyes of this young lady, development of character, foreshortening of

narrative, construction, syntax, nay, even grammar and punctuation, had

become inexhaustible subjects of meditation and discussion, upon which

every experience of life could be brought to bear.

So much for Lady Tal. As regards Marion, he had, not without considerable

self-contempt, surrendered himself to the demon of character study.

This passion for investigating into the feelings and motives of his

neighbours was at once the joy, the pride, and the bane and humiliation

of Marion's placid life. He was aware that he had, for years and years,

cultivated this tendency to the utmost; and he was fully convinced that

to study other folks and embody his studies in the most lucid form was

the one mission of his life, and a mission in nowise inferior to that of

any other highly gifted class of creatures. Indeed, if Jervase Marion,

ever since his earliest manhood, had given way to a tendency to withdraw

from all personal concerns, from all emotion or action, it was mainly

because he conceived that this shrinkingness of nature (which foolish

persons called egoism) was the necessary complement to his power of

intellectual analysis; and that any departure from the position of

dispassioned spectator of the world's follies and miseries would mean

also a departure from his real duty as a novelist. To be brought into

contact with people more closely than was necessary or advantageous for

their intellectual comprehension; to think about them, feel about them,

mistress, wife, son, or daughter, the bare thought of such a thing

jarred upon Marion's nerves. So, the better to study, the better to be

solitary, he had expatriated himself, leaving brothers, sisters (now his

mother was dead), friends of childhood, all those things which invade a

man's consciousness without any psychological profit; he had condemned

himself to live in a world of acquaintances, of indifference; and, for

sole diversion, he permitted himself, every now and then, to come abroad

to places where he had not even acquaintances, where he could look

at faces which had no associations for him, and speculate upon the

character of total strangers. Only, being a methodical man, and much

concerned for his bodily and intellectual health, he occasionally

thought fit to suspend even this contact with mankind, and to spend six

weeks, as he had intended spending those six weeks at Venice, in the

contemplation of only bricks and mortar.

And now, that demon of psychological study had got the better of his

determination. Marion understood it all now from the beginning: that

astonishing feebleness of his towards Lady Atalanta, that extraordinary

submission to this imperious and audacious young aristocrat's orders.

The explanation was simple, though curious. He had divined in Lady

Atalanta a very interesting psychological problem, considerably before

he had been able to formulate the fact to himself: his novelist's

intuition, like the scent of a dog, had set him on the track even before

he knew the nature of the game, or the desire to pursue. Before even

beginning to think about Lady Atalanta, he had begun to watch her; he

was watching her now consciously; indeed all his existence was engrossed

in such watching, so that the hours he spent away from her company, or

the company of her novel, were so many gaps in his life.

Jervase Marion, as a result both of that shrinkingness of nature, and

of a very delicate artistic instinct, had an aversion of such coarse

methods of study as consist in sitting down in front of a human being

and staring, in a metaphorical sense, at him or her. He was not a man of

theories (their cut-and-driedness offending his subtlety); but had he

been forced to formulate his ideas, he would have said that in order to

perceive the real values (in pictorial language) of any individual, you

must beware of isolating him or her; you must merely look attentively

at the moving ocean of human faces, watching for the one face more

particularly interesting than the rest, and catching glimpses of its

fleeting expression, and of the expression of its neighbours as it

appears and reappears. Perhaps, however, Marion's other reason against

the sit-down-and-stare or walk-round-and-pray system of psychological

study was really the stronger one in his nature, the more so that he

would probably not have admitted its superior validity. This other

reason was a kind of moral scruple against getting to know the secret

mechanism of a soul, especially if such knowledge involved an appearance

of intimacy with a person in whom he could never take more than a merely

abstract, artistic interest. It was a mean taking advantage of superior

strength, or the raising of expectations which could not be fulfilled;

for Marion, although the most benevolent and serviceable of mortals, did

not give his heart, perhaps because he had none to give, to anybody.

This scruple had occurred to Marion almost as soon as he discovered

himself to be studying Lady Tal; and it occurred to him once or twice

afterwards. But he despatched it satisfactorily. Lady Tal, in the first

place, was making use of him in the most outrageous way, without scruple

or excuse; it was only just that he, in his turn, should turn her to

profit with equal freedom. This reason, however, savoured slightly of

intellectual caddishness, and Marion rejected it with scorn. The real

one, he came to perceive, was that Lady Tal gratuitously offered herself

for study by her quiet, aggressive assumption of inscrutability. She

really thrust her inscrutability down one's throat; her face, her

manner, her every remark, her very novel, were all so many audacious

challenges to the more psychological members of the community. She

seemed to be playing on a gong and crying: "Does anyone feel inclined

to solve a riddle? Is there any person who thinks himself sufficiently

clever to understand me?" And when a woman takes up such an attitude,

it is only natural, human and proper that the first novelist who comes

along that way should stop and say: "I intend to get to the bottom of

you; one, two, three, I am going to begin."

So Jervase Marion assiduously cultivated the society of Lady Atalanta,

and spent most of his time instructing her in the art of the novelist.